CAFCA joins with all those paying tribute to Ranginui Walker (uniquely, we find ourselves in company with John Key in so doing).

We were proud to have had Ranginui as a CAFCA member continuously from 1993 until his death this week. He was a generous one too, more often than not (including in 2015) adding a sizeable donation.

From 1996 until this January he was a regular sizeable donor to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account which provides my income.

In addition to that, he was a Roger Award judge for two consecutive years (2002 & 03. For the record, 2002 was one of several years the Award was won by the late unlamented Tranz Rail; in 2003 it was Juken Nissho)

The only time I ever met Ranginui was at the (2003) Auckland event for the 2002 Roger Award. But what more CAFCAesque setting could there be than a Roger Award event for such a meeting?

Here is a brief extract from my 2002 Organiser’s Report to give just a little hint of the enormous fun that was had that (very wet) Auckland night:” …Michele A’Court, actor and comedian, did an excellent job as the MC. She got a laugh from the Aucklanders by saying that Sukhi Turner, one of the Award judges and Mayor of Dunedin, couldn’t be there because it wasn’t cold enough (never mind, it was wet enough, inside and out – the building leaked, it really was an Auckland leaky building). Following a Maori welcome (a first for the Roger event), the wonderfully named Rectify The Anomaly bush band (that name would be perfect for a Viagra ad), including event organisers, George Baxter and Jim Gladwin, got the evening off to a ripsnorting start. Some of the singing was exquisitely beautiful, bringing tears to the eyes; other songs directed popular wrath at Big Business.

“The evening also featured two performances. The GE Free Street Theatre did a splendid skit (in honour of Novartis being one of the finalists). My favourite character was the villainous capitalist whose one line, oft repeated, was ‘Ha, ha, ha, I’m so evil’. He was too, the bastard. And the Cell Collective specially produced a wonderful video for the evening, giving the finalists a unique, cinematic, once over not so lightly. Nobody who saw it will ever forget the Carter Holt Harvey character literally talking shit.

“I spoke, on behalf of the Award organisers. It seemed to be well received, although a number in the audience seemed to have gone into shock at seeing me sans hair and beard for the first time ever (I struggled to recognise myself at first, too). John Minto, one of the judges, delivered the verdict with all the moral zeal of the lapsed Catholic. I’m sure Judge John was the Inquisitor General in a past life. He said that most award ceremonies start at the bottom and work to the top. ‘But the Roger Award starts at the bottom and works down’. He referred to the finalists as ‘scumbags’ and to Fay Richwhite (who did rather nicely out of their purchase and sale of Tranz Rail) as ‘boils on the backside of humanity’. It’s the second consecutive year that John has performed this task and he’s a natural at it (Ranginui Walker, the other Auckland judge, was present – because he was wearing a cap, Michele A’Court apologised for mistaking him for Tiger Woods. Emphasis added). This was the sixth Roger Award event and they just keep on getting stronger. We must be doing something right”.

Thanks Ranginui for being part of CAFCA, along with everything else for which you are much better known and so rightly acclaimed.

ends

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